Loving Your Daughters

Okay, I have a question to begin today. Oh, good. Well, maybe good.

We'll see. What do you think makes me feel loved? Oh, I should know this answer.

I know. I mean, words, gifts, time, touch. Oh, all the things.

Wait, you're just naming all of them. I know I'm going in order of love languages, but words of love and affirmation are huge. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. I was going to say time is probably my number one. Well, when we go out on a date, that's time you want to talk.

Yes, that's true. About our relationship. Exactly. Well, I'm excited because today we're going to help some parents and we're going to help them understand ways that will communicate love to their daughters. And we've already talked a little bit about how we can communicate love to our sons.

But we have Matt and Lisa Jacobson back with us today on Family Life Today. Welcome. Thank you.

Great to be with you again. We're excited, you guys, because you really already have helped us understand how to love our sons and how to communicate that. And today we want to talk about how we love our daughters.

So I'm excited to see how that will even be a little different. This is going to be 100 ways to love your daughter, obviously. And we've mentioned you guys are the 100 ways couple. You wrote a book on 100 ways to love your husband, love your wife, now your son and your daughter. And we haven't even got to it yet, but affirmation.

So we'll get to that later. But I like the subtitle, The Simple Powerful Path to a Close and Lasting Relationship. And Matt, you started faithfulman.com. Lisa, you started club30women.com. You guys are authors, bestsellers of these books on family, marriage, women and men. Parents of eight children. Yes.

How do you guys do it all? Four girls, four boys. Yes.

Yeah. It didn't start out that way. It was one son and then four daughters. And our son is like desperately praying, God, please. And then we have three sons.

You know, that's pretty unusual to have eight kids, eight of your own biological kids today. Were you just drowning at times? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I was trying to think of a nice Christian spiritual answer, but no, that's it.

Yes. It was pretty intense days. But look at you. You're really impacting so many and helping so many of us today. But I was intrigued by your very first way to make your daughter feel loved. And you said to ask her questions. And you say in here, Lisa. I'm not surprised at all.

I love this. And the only reason I say that is because Anne loves it when we go out or anytime, turn off the TV and say, just ask me how I'm doing. Well, and people have said to you, you guys are really close with your family, with your kids.

And you describe why you think that is. And it was this number one, ask her real questions. Yeah, not just how are you doing or what you're up to, but really asking what were you thinking today and or what's on your heart or if you can get specific, that's even better. You know, how did your conversation with so-and-so go or are you nervous about this test coming up?

All those things, they just open up good conversations. And sometimes they're not even aware themselves. They were struggling with something or heavy about something. I just remember myself being a especially young girl, just feeling lost in my own thoughts and emotions and how nice it is to have somebody care. But also help you kind of process some of that, too. But I mean, do they answer? Because sometimes I think maybe it's a male, female thing, maybe not. But sometimes when Anne asked me a question like, what are you thinking or feeling?

I'll be like, nothing really. Part of me doesn't want to answer. The other is I'm really not feeling or thinking anything. But with daughters, is it different? Do you get answers?

Some of my daughters are very ready with their answer and excited about it. I can also think of another daughter who I'm just was talking to this weekend, in fact. And I was just getting the dead end answers, nothing, not much. And so I thought, okay, well, maybe nothing isn't going on. But the more we were talking, the more I saw emotion in her eyes. And then I just said, you seem sad in your eyes.

Is there a reason I'm seeing that? And then they got really teary, you know, and she said, well, I suppose. And it's a lot of things. I said, okay, well, let's talk about some of those things. And then, but she'll make me work at it. And I was talking to Matt after this phone call.

Do you remember this? And I just said, I'm really glad I hung in there. And I had to keep reminding myself that to be patient and not to yard it out of her, but to really, really gently pull those things out from her. And she felt so much better after we were done talking.

I felt better and I know she did. But so sometimes you have to work a little harder, I think. Matt, is it the same for you with your daughters?

Like, is it harder for you to go there? Because Lisa, you're watching the facial expressions, what they're emoting. You're not trying to say we men can't do that. No, I'm really not. But I'm just asking with daughters, with a dad, are you watching as closely? And it's different for you, probably.

It is for me. And I don't know if this is for every dad, but I just had this hyper sense of protection. Maybe just, you know, over the top kind of protection. What does over the top mean?

Was he like, I'm looking at Lisa. Well, I'm just constantly vigilant. I think too uptight, really, in a lot of ways. And so just maybe too uptight about, hey, I don't know if that's the right thing and what's happening over there. Is that safe?

Is that safe? And so the communication that I had was really, I mean, early on, was really about, hey, I'm the protector. You know, that was my mindset. And I'm not even saying that that's necessarily how they perceived it. But it was definitely easier to chit chat with the kids when they're younger.

You know, there's just no question about it. And, you know, when they get older, we talked maybe a little bit about this in the son's book where there's that transition to manhood. And it's over the course of years, almost like the dawn, right? It's a little light and it gets lighter and lighter until it's the full light of the sun. And it took me a while to understand, oh, that's the mode we're in.

That's the season we're in. Now, my daughters are just, if they get in trouble, they call me. One thing I've noticed, particularly in terms of this kind of conversation is you're a good processor and they like processing with you. So she and I might have the conversation, the emotion that I feel for you. But I've noticed that they will call you, especially when it's something they just want to work through without the emotion of mom.

Interesting. And I think we're all now comfortable enough that I'll even say, you know what, that might be a good thing to talk to your dad through. He's wise and I think he'll see things without the emotional cloud that I can sometimes see things even, so. And also, they're going to be in that season of life at some point where they're not going to be as communicative.

And again, don't take the bait. I like that you say closeness comes from seeking, from seeking their hearts and pursuing a relationship. I know that when our kids became teens, I became so focused in on their behavior of what they weren't doing and I was fearful of what they were going to do. That now that our kids are adults, they said, I wish you would have pursued my heart more and asked me more about how's my heart doing that's making me make these dumb decisions. Do you know what I mean? Well, this world is a big, bad, dangerous, awful, disgusting place in a lot of ways.

I said the protector. And so you get focused on those things and you want to protect them from predators and other such influences and people that would take advantage of them and that can be such a focus. But yeah, they need to know that you love them. They need to know you like them. They need to know that you like their personality, that they're wonderful the way they are. And you know, if a parent can just tell themselves that, you know what, my daughter, she's just wonderful the way she is. Now it's interesting having four daughters.

Their personalities couldn't possibly be more different. It's really interesting that way. But we just have tried to communicate with them, you know what, you are a unique, wonderful, beautiful creation of God. And we just love how you think. We love who you are.

We love your personality. And sometimes maybe there are parents out there even listening thinking, yeah, you know what, I don't really love my kids' personality right now. But sometimes you can speak the future truth into them. You don't have to love the bad thing they did to you.

But you can love who they are and you can tell yourself, I need to communicate that. That reminds me of, I was just talking to a mom recently this past week and she has a little girl who's just very emotional, high strung, flips out all the time, meltdowns. Dramatic. And she herself is kind of a no-nonsense personality. So she's just at a loss of what to do with this little girl. And I said, oh, I love this. She's passionate.

She goes, oh, what's that word? I said, no, but this is a wonder. I mean, it's hard when they're five and they're that passionate because it can be over the bowl of cereal and it's a total meltdown. I said, no, but just think of this little girl when she's 25.

I was thinking one of our daughters and how she's passionate for pro-life and she's out there and she's marching and she's advocating. That passion is a beautiful thing in a 25-year-old woman. And it's hard when they're five maybe.

Yeah, to project that. I told her, I said, I wish I would have had that picture in my mind when my little girl was five because I think it just would have been so much easier, you know, just at least to go, hey, I know you're overflowing with it now. But just wait till the Lord matures you.

And we walk through this together and it's going to be a beautiful thing. It's so funny, Lisa, because I was just talking to a group of young moms with daughters and I said, you know, I'd be careful of using the words, you're so dramatic. And every single one of the moms said, oh, no, we use it all the time. And they said, but she is dramatic.

And I said the same thing. And she's passionate. She feels so deep. I mean, we, one of our sons was, would the word be dramatic? It was just that very passionate.

If his shoelaces weren't exactly right, he'd just throw a fit at two, three years. Remember? Everything had to be lined up and just a hundred percent and everything. And at times as a parent, it was exasperating.

Sure. And then when he became a man and he gave his first sermon archer, he's a pastor preacher now. The first sermon we just looked at each other like, oh, there it is.

It all makes sense. He was on fire up there. He's crying.

He's passionate. There it is. It's being used now in a beautiful way. But man, as a parent, it was one of the most frustrating things. And you're right, Lisa, it's like you got to project in the future.

This is a beautiful, unique gifting in your child that God can possibly use someday to advance the kingdom. Because our goal is to get through breakfast, let's just say. And so the bowl of cereal is a problem, right? This meltdown is a problem and you're interfering with my goals. And so I'm frustrated with you. And I say this gently and carefully and with conviction.

But if our goal as a parent is to raise up this child for the kingdom of God, then it's just breakfast and we don't have to worry about it. What we really want to do is like, hey, you're feeling really strongly about this right now. Let's address this. Let's work through this.

And it's no longer just an inconvenience. It's actually an opportunity. And really, you know, I think it's probably time I should tell the dead goat milk story.

Dead goat milk. Sorry, but we don't run a deli. We have eight kids. We have all our little kids and you're going to eat what's put before you. And we're not doing the drama thing.

That's not happening. You're just going to have what you're given. Well, we got cereal. We used to not do a lot of cereal. Cold cereal is a treat. It's expensive.

Yeah, it is. For that crowd. So anyway, and we got goat milk. We always had goat milk. We have friends who had a goat milk farm. Anyway, but I put it on the cereal and the kids are just sitting there with this milk on their face.

I said, what's the matter? Because I'm thinking, hey, we went out and got cereal. Kids are supposed to like cereal.

We'll have breakfast. This is a treat. A treat, absolutely.

Yeah, exactly. Eat your treat. And Vienna, our no-nonsense daughter, she goes, dad, this is dead goat milk. And I said, I'm not going to put up with any of this complaining and what in the world.

No kids would touch it. And I took the jug and I said, what's the matter with you kids? There's nothing wrong. And I took a big drink of it and then I threw it up in the sink. Was it that bad?

It was so bad. Well, it had gone bad. There's nothing wrong with goat milk.

All you goat milk farmers out there, don't write in and complain. It had sat in the sun or something. Because it's a great thing to have if you can get it. But there was something wrong with this one. And it just reminded me. So we all laughed. We all laughed, but yeah, the parent who's not going to put up with drama. Well, as we talk about asking kids real questions, I was remembering when I was 16 years old, my dad, I'm the youngest of four, he didn't spend a lot of time with me. And my uncle had cancer. My mom had to take him to chemo treatments. And so every time my mom was out of town, and she took him once a week, my dad would say to me, all the other siblings are now out of the house. He'd say, hey, we're going out to dinner. Because he didn't know how to cook.

Yeah. And it felt really awkward because I'd never spent time with my dad. And I was nervous. It sounds crazy, but I just didn't know him. And he sat and he began asking me questions, like deep questions, like tell me who you are now.

You know, and I'm like, what? What is happening right now? And that dinner continued. He'd get an extra cup of coffee and ask more questions.

Tell me about what you see as your future. And it was, I'm still going to tell you, those were some of the best days of my life with my dad. Because he saw me, he took an interest in me. And when somebody asks questions and really listens, you feel incredibly important. You feel loved. And loved.

And one of the things I love, too, is you said, here's an example. And I felt like you had some of these ways to love our daughters that were very much alike. And you said, get up early and watch the sun rise together. Tell us about that. Well, sometimes you can just do something that's out of the ordinary with the kids. And you know what?

If you put a plan together like that, they'll be all in. Let's just do it. Let's just go. Tell me the first time you did this. Well, it wasn't just the sunrise. We've done a number of things like that.

Like, for instance, one time in November, there was a meteor shower at night. And I said, okay, we're just going to take the blankets and we're going to put them out on the lawn. And we're all going to get out there and we'll get under a couple of blankets.

We'll just watch the stars and see who can find the most shooting stars. And that's a time that we did that sort of thing. I can tell you as a parent, as a dad, I wish I would have done a thousand more of these things. Really? All right?

Absolutely. And so what I was referencing in the broadcast about suns is that there are things in the books where we grew into, we learned to do these things, and I wish I would have done a lot, a lot more of those kinds of things. I had one of those awakening moments when one of our daughters was, I think she's about 12, 13, and she just was clearly exasperated with me. She said, Mom, I just wish she'd spent time with me. And here I am, I'm a homeschooling mom. I feel like I'm a pretty committed mom. Like, I took her to music lessons.

I couldn't believe it. You're with her all the time. I am with her way too much. But she meant it with all her heart and was clearly just so frustrated with me.

And so I thought, okay, I got to figure this out. And I realized I've been doing all these things for her, taking her to music lessons, cooking her meals, home-educating her. But in her young girl's mind, that's not the same thing. It's just, I just want to be with you. And I started taking her out, just doing little date nights. Actually, she's in her 20s now, and we still have a weekly date.

And we'll go to coffee, we'll grab something to eat. And we just love this time together, love it. And she was probably my hardest kid to connect with, and she'll be the first to tell you that. We just had a hard time, personality-wise, connecting.

But that gentle pursuit of her heart and just saying, I don't have an agenda, we're just hanging today. We're going to do something a little special, nothing fancy but special. We did that with our three sons. How do you do that with eight kids? How are you dating these eight kids?

Well, I do want to touch on just that one point, just a subtle point. There are a lot of parents who do a lot of things for their kids. And they're doing, and they're doing, and they're doing. Sacrificially, you know, so it's real.

Absolutely, you're all in. But there is a massive difference between doing and being. And in that being mode, what you're really saying is, I want to be with you. Whereas the doing mode, I'm just doing things for you.

But your daughter needs to know that you actually want to be with her. So it's really more communicating that you want that time with her than that you had that time and checked the box off. I don't know about you, Anne, but I have always struggled with performance. Oh, me too. Like I just have to be doing things, checking things off the box.

That's what makes me a legit person. Get things done. And that's all we do as moms. We're getting stuff done.

We are get it done girls. I just wonder how it could have been different if the people who loved me, around me, were just content with just being with me. That I was just okay just as I was and I didn't have to be doing all these things to be a joy. And I really want to communicate that to our daughters. It is interesting that you said you'd do it a thousand times more as you think back. So I mean, I'm listening to that thinking, okay, that sounds like a parent that's older and has done the parenting thing for many years looking back. And so if I'm a younger parent listening right now, maybe I've got a baby or toddlers or even a 10-year-old, what would you say? How can they learn from what you just said so that they don't 20, 30 years from now say what you just said? Besides get their book?

Yeah, definitely get the book. That's the answer right there. That is the answer.

But, you know, it's like, again, I'm reading into it, so I'll let you answer. But when I hear that, I think the same thing. And we're grandparents now.

And it's like, man, there's times when I'm like, you know what, I'm going to grab a picnic basket and a blanket, and we're just going to go hang out in a treehouse. I didn't do it. I got busy doing something else. The moment's gone.

And now when I look back, I'm like, that moment would have been more memorable than probably a lot. So talk about that a little bit. Because being is more important than doing. It just is. And, you know, nobody looks back on their parenting and says, you know what, I wish we would have, you know, spent more time making sure the kid got to the soccer practice or making sure we didn't miss music lessons.

You know, nobody says that. What they regret is that they didn't reach the heart of their child. And the way you do that, kids spell love, T-I-M-E. And just being there and, again, communicating that you want to be there.

That's the nugget. This child knows, my daughter knows, I actually want to be there with her. And so that's really the core of it, just this sense that I'm communicating value to her. We are, as parents, communicating value to our kids that we actually want to be with them. And that fills that child with a sense of security, a sense of value, and a sense of love. And that's really the core of it.

And it doesn't matter whether you have three or eight kids or what life throws at you. You know, we've had a few challenges. We have a daughter who's severely brain damaged. And when that happened, it took two years out of our life in terms of just fighting for her existence. She's 21 now in a wheelchair, paraplegic.

There's that. And then my parents actually have lived with us for the better part of, what, 25 years, something like that. My mom got Alzheimer's. She had it for 10 years. I was her primary caregiver, and then my dad got congestive heart failure and was on hospice care for five years.

He set the record up in, I think, Oregon for being on hospice care. But I was his primary caregiver for that. But those things are just this weight of obligation that come. I'm listening to all you've been through. Those are hard things. They're weighty things.

You're right that they're heavy. And yet you're loving these eight kids under your roof in a way. Imperfectly, but yes. Imperfectly, yes, but you're intentional, as you've said earlier. Way to go.

Yeah, way to go. And part of what I'm hearing, and I think this is something that's very, again, I'm speaking sort of as a parent who's been there. Again, not that we're done, but we sort of are in some ways, is we get so involved in doing things that we think we're with our kids and we're watching them play soccer.

Their activities. And I remember years ago somebody asked us at our church, how do you do it all? You've got three boys and you're doing this and you're really in this church. And I remember looking at them and going, we don't.

We say no to so many other things. You know how many coaches wanted our son to be in this league and this league and this league? And I remember I was coaching a little league baseball and they said, they literally told me, these other guys, if you don't play 60 games this summer, your kids will never progress. I'm like, we're playing 20.

That's it. And they look at you like you don't care about your kids. I'm like, no, I care more about my kids being with us as a family, sitting down at dinner tables and hanging out in the backyard than I do sitting in bleachers watching them play another sport. Again, I'm not against that.

I'm obviously, I coached all the way through. I love that. But I think we get so involved in the doing that we're not being a family and the memories are then really not, they don't remember us sitting watching them play.

They remember us playing with them. Yeah. I agree with that, Dave. Again, it's hard to say no to some of those things when you feel the pressure of our culture telling us this is what's important. But what I hear is important to you guys is a family whose foundation is on the rock of Jesus.

And when I hear all you've been through, it makes me think, oh, that's your strength. Talk about that as we close. Well, there's probably not a person listening that doesn't have all kinds of things in their lives that they just wouldn't choose for themselves. Yeah.

Okay. All kinds of people listening that have things that they would never choose for themselves. And yet, as we take a step back and we just look at it and we go, you know, if I didn't choose this for myself, is this something that God allowed into my life for his purposes? God's at work and God's at work in us and he's at work in our children. And God's so gracious with us on the journey that he's taken us. He's so patient with us. He's so unconditionally loving toward us.

And he's that father that has his arms out all the time. Can we recognize that our children are on a journey too? They're walking through life too and they have things in their life that they wouldn't choose for themselves.

God is at work. And as a parent, I just come back to that verse in James 4-8 and it says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Our walk in life is about walking in communion with the father. And the word of God says, when we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. So, having a great relationship with your kids as a believer really starts with communing with God and walking with him and walking in the light with him. So good. Thank you guys for being with us. Great to be with you.

God bless. I imagine you're finding yourself thinking about practical ways that you can express love for your children, whether it's writing a note, sending them a text, doing something special with them to engage with them. We need to be looking for simple opportunities, simple ways that we can connect heart to heart with our kids and for them to understand we really do love them. Matt and Lisa Jacobson have written two books to help us with this. One book's called A Hundred Ways to Love Your Son.

The other is A Hundred Ways to Love Your Daughter. We're making both of these books available to listeners this week. Those of you who can join the team that makes Family Life Today possible for you, for people in your community, for people all around the world. Family Life Today is listeners supported. We're here today because listeners like you made today's program possible. And we want to ask you to make tomorrow's program possible by making a donation today.

It's easy to do. You can donate online. Go to familylifetoday.com to donate or call 1-800-FL-TODAY.

1-800-358-6329. You can donate over the phone. Again, your donations help cover the cost of producing and syndicating this program so that hundreds of thousands of people every day can benefit from the work that's being done here. And we'll be happy to send you as a thank you gift, Matt and Lisa Jacobson's books, A Hundred Ways to Love Your Son and A Hundred Ways to Love Your Daughter. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks in advance for your support of this ministry. Now tomorrow we want to talk about some of the wrong thinking that accompanies the subject of singleness.

Because there are a lot of myths around what it means to be single in our day. Sam Albury is going to join us tomorrow. I hope you can join us as well. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.